Honda Sports Cars May Return to US

We were hoping the Honda S660 roadster that is sold in Japan would eventually be sold in the United States, but according to executive VP John Mendel, that’s probably not going to happen.

Fortunately, there is some good news for Honda performance enthusiasts. The Honda Civic Type R, which has been tearing up the European countryside, is expected for American launch next year, and the automaker says it wants to build sporty cars for the United States again.

New CEO Takahiro Hachigo has promised more exciting models, noting that it’s all that dealerships are asking about. “They want anything in the sports car world,” he said. “They’re going, ‘Gimme a sports car.’ They want a retractable hardtop; they want a high-horsepower $20,000 sports car. Because that’s the nature of what they do.”

The automaker is also known to have filed patent drawings this year for a new mid-engined model. Just this July, a full-scale exterior design study was on display at the opening of Honda’s new R&D lab in Silicon Valley, which suspiciously resembled those drawings.

Looks like time will tell if we’ll get new Honda sports cars at Union Park Honda, but one thing is for sure: only a year and at the very least we’ll finally get our hands on the Civic Type R.